Hi...my name is Laura, and I am addicted to Facebook games

The only thing that keeps me on Facebook (aside from keeping up with friends and my various marketing jobs) is the applications and games. Recently, I am addicted to Sorority Life because they have created a new side to the game. A very exclusive side that I must conquer. They call them "Study Abroad" missions and they only stay open for a certain amount of time, so you have around 2 months to buy all the items, complete all the challenges, and unlock all the prizes. I know what you are thinking.....I've lost it! But, for my friends and I it is a serious addiction. In my last blog post when I went offline for a week, it was in the middle of one of these Study Abroad missions. I almost didn't finish it because I did not have access to my Facebook. This got me thinking about it. Would anything happen to me if I didn't finish one of these missions? Of course not!! Games like Sorority Life offer exclusive gifts and rewards to those who loyally play the game. For years I have rotated between this game and many others such as Pet Society, Monopoly, Draw My Thing, and Snake.

What people do not realize is that marketers are catching onto the giant audiences these games capture. Advertising could be anything from Welch's Grape Vines on Farmville or Covergirl mascara on Sorority life. Marketers now have the advantage of a highly targeted and captive audience, something they have never had before.

In my opinion as a marketer, I think this is the way that social media marketing should go. By putting actual products right into the games, the player is subconsciously exposed to the brand longer than if that same person were exposed to the product by a TV commercial.

My top 10 relationship DONTS on Facebook (for girls)

1) Thou shall not creep!!!! You should already trust them, so why are you creeping on them behind their back? Checking up on them is just going to make you crazy and cause a fight over something stupid. If you talk to them, and have good communication, you eliminate the need to creep on them.

2) Why do you have to be "Facebook Official?" Why can't you just discuss this with your man before you get mad that he hasn't sent you a request on Facebook. What ever happened to a man asking a woman out on a date and then asking whether or not they were officially dating or not. Note for the men: If you ever send me a relationship request on Facebook before we have talked about it face-to-face, expect me to reject it.

3) Do NOT go too far back into his tagged pictures or picture albums. Chances are there are pictures of him and an ex. It may be that he is holding onto an old romance, but the better explanation is that he forgot they were on there and hasn't gotten around to deleting them. Guys are forgetful....give them a break.

4) If another girl writes on your man's wall, don't assume that he is cheating. He is allowed to have friends that are girls, just like you can have friends that are guys. This goes back to no creeping. Just don't do it!!

5) Do not write that you love him every other day on his wall. It just looks like you are trying to mark your territory. if he wants to keep you around, he won't be out looking, so you can probably cool it with all those posts.

When People Break Up, According to Facebook Status Updates

6) Do not let your friends tell you that he is Facebook flirting or doing anything he shouldn't be doing online. If they only know this guy via Facebook, then they shouldn't be giving you life advice about him. If they have met him and something happened in public and they saw it, only then should you listen to them.

7) Do not add his friends if you have not actually met them and had a conversation with them. It is SUPER creepy, and if you creep out the friends...you might as well kiss him goodbye. On the other end of that, if his friends add you and you have no idea who they are, you can use your own judgement.

8) If one of his friends gets on Facebook Chat and starts bad talking your man, don't give in because you don't know where that information is going. Same rules apply to AIM (if you were a 90's kid and know what that is).

9) Do not set your profile picture to the 2 of you making out. It is just not classy! If an employer searches you, then that will be their first impression. This is sort of a general rule, but its a good one to have.

10) Don't creep!! Just don't!! This rule is so important it is both first and last. You will be so much happier if you follow this rule. If he IS cheating, its probably not going to show up on Facebook, and if it does, you need to talk to him face-to-face. Do not send him a text or a Facebook message....actually talk to him face-to-face.

Longest week ever!! ...I'm BACK!!!

This is a continuation of "Challenge accepted"

Day 1:
Just got my horoscope tweeted to my text messages! Fail!! I have unfollowed them and will pick them back up when I come back to Twitter. My Facebook is the only account that I have formally deactivated. Twitter said it was a permanent thing, so I will just stay off. I have also moved all social media apps on my phone to a separate page so I can't even see them. I think this will be okay.

Day 2:
I just read an email from LinkedIn. ARG!!! I totally forgot and opened it. This may get tricky because I get an insane amount of LinkedIn emails. My internet use today consisted of browsing the iTunes store, checking my email, and looking into getting a netflix account. I am super bored. People keep taunting me about not having a Facebook, and to make things worse my mom was reading me status updates from my cousins. LALALALA...I can't hear you!!

Day 3:
My friends are planning me a birthday party for Friday and I cannot get on Facebook to make an event. I really hope they are doing this for me, but I can't be sure. This is getting harder and harder!! To make things worse, I may be in a relationship and I have to go through the guessing game of "are we together, is it official" without the help of social media. This is getting sad! Then my mom wanted to show me more things on Facebook, and then was like "oh wait, you can't" and then just laughed.

Day 4:
Well, I have terrible communication skills. C'est la vie! It's really slow around here; I need something to take my mind off things, but I can't get on any of my favorite sites. I did get a netflix account, and love it, so I will be watching some movies. I really just want to get on Facebook...I want my reality back!!! I also updated my phone, bought some music because I cannot get on YouTube, and shopped online. Social media withdrawal is hard on my wallet.

Day 5:
Last night I was talking to my friend who challenged me to give up social media for a week and she just "had to" turn her Facebook back on. This is so wrong...2 more days after this one! Today I got a hold of my big sister in the sorority and she isn't going to come to my party because she didn't know about it. I cannot blame her for this because I didn't call her and I'm not on Facebook to make an event. This is an example of how our communication skills have been altered since social media. Tomorrow is my party...I am glad I will have some sort of distraction because I am on the edge of breaking down and getting on Facebook. This is the worst possible time for me to give social media up because people can't get a hold of me.

Day 6:
I want on creep on people so bad!! I also want to listen to music and watch funny YouTube videos!! I really want to cave in right now, but I have to stay strong. I don't really need to do any of this, but it has been a habit for so long. We all went out to birthday dinner and the girls wanted to see a picture of this guy that I keep talking about. This would be easy if I had access to Facebook so I told them that they could look him up. This is getting really difficut!!!

Day 7:
I am counting down the hours until I can get back on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pandora, and every other site I like to use!! Right now I have 4 hours to go on this dare. Last night I tried to cheat, but when I tried to login to my Facebook on my iPhone it wouldn't let me because it was deactivated.

Additional thoughts:
I feel like most status updates and tweets are jabs or hints for people that follow you or that are your friends. Why don't we just tell people directly how we feel? Life without know what everyone is doing is a blessing and a curse. Its a blessing because you have privacy, and you are no longer obsessing over other people. It's a curse because we are in a society that has become obsessed with other peoples thoughts, feelings, and day to day activity.Why have we become so obsessed with telling people where we are and what we are thinking. This entire week, when I had a profound thought or something that I could update people on, I was like "Damn, why do we all think that way?" People have gotten to the point that they rely on Facebook as a communication medium. The downside of this is that the internet is written in permanent marker, and problems can't be easily resolved this way. The upside is that we can stay in touch with people we have met over the years because everyone has a permanent address on the internet, regardless of housing situation.

Challenge accepted!

I know you have heard me talk about other people doing this, but can I do this? 1 week without any form of social media. Tonight, I was talking to a friend of mine who is studying for the GRE. After several time wasting hours on Facebook, she decided to take the plunge and deactivate her Facebook page. When she told me that she did this I was confused! How can you live without social media?! This made me begin to evaluate how many social media sites I use in a normal day.

I wake up and check Facebook and then I roll through my timeline on Twitter. I normally go back to Facebook and play some games, and then if I am bored I get on StumbleUpon and see what kind of new sites my friends have found. On top of these 3 sites, I use MyFitnessPal on my iPhone, which is a social network that helps me lose weight with the help and encouragement of my friends. I also listen to Pandora, which lets me know if my friends like a certain artist as it plays. I am also addicted to UrbanSpoon, which allows me to look at different restaurant recommendations from people in my town. There is also LinkedIn, that I normally check twice a week to make sure I am not missing out on a fabulous job. I also use HootSuite to coordinate most of these, so I also have to stay off this too. Last, but certainly not least, is YouTube!! I LOVE YouTube more than people know! I look up old cartoons, musicals, playlists, random songs, movies, you name it...I will probably find it on YouTube. I have a playlist for every mood and occasion, this may be hard! WOW!! I am online a lot!!

The next question is, can I still use Bing? They have added whether or not your friends like a particular thing. Is this social media too? I think that it technically is because you are being persuaded by your friends when you look something up. I will have to go back to Google.

The only disadvantage to not checking all of these in the next week is that I need to get ahead in one of the games I play on Facebook before I turn everything off....sad, but very true! Will this help my social skills? What will the outcome be? I will start this on Sunday, June the 5th and resume use on the 12th. At that time, I will blog the results.

Wish me luck!!

This one time at a concert....

Last night I went to a Secondhand Serenade concert and one of the opening bands was selling CD's and my friend wanted one but, as any normal person our age, only had plastic. Not a problem! The new up and coming artist had an app on his iPhone called square! I don't know if anyone has heard about this technology, because its fairly new, but it is a new app that allows you to set up an account to take credit cards. 

He didn't have the card reader shown above, which is a freebie provided by the company, so he had to key in the number. After signing your name with you finger, you can receive your receipt via text message or an email! SO NEAT!! The app is free, the card reader is free, there are no contracts, no monthly fees, and Square will only take 2.75% of every swipe. 

Next question: Will we ever be able to live without the iPhone or the Droid? Probably not! Companies are making their products and services more social for a society that is much more socially conscious than we were ten years ago; online bill pay, bank apps, credit card readers on our phones, Twitter on our refrigerators, what will they think of next?

Real websites vs. Facebook pages

Have you noticed lately that every website mentioned in a commercial is a Facebook page. Take tide for example: when they come out with something new, they always reference their Facebook page.

Companies are now catching on that if they don't write about, someone else will and you cannot control what they say about you. A company can influence the conversation about them online, but they cannot control it fully like they could 10 years ago.

I have learned at my new job at Griffs (doing social media marketing) that you have to get consumers involved in the conversation for them to care about you and your product. If they care about you, they will have more brand loyalty and you will move up in their evoked set.

I like that companies are catching onto this social media wave that has happened lately. I know that I was on Facebook earlier looking for a particular bag that I saw. Real websites will always be around, but companies on Facebook will only increase from this point on.

A lot has changed on my break from blogging... but social media always changes

I haven't blogged in a while so here is a quick update on my life:
As you know, I am a senior at WKU and I am graduating in May with my degree in social media marketing. We had to take this huge exam over everything we have ever learned in the marketing department in order to graduate from the business college. Not everyone passes this exam and one girl in my major is back again this semester to take it. Needless to say, I was a wreck trying to study for this exam. GOOD NEWS!! I PASSED!!!! Something else exciting in my life is that I have started a job where I get to apply what I have learned as a social media marketer for Griffs Deli (a local business) in Bowling Green, KY. Enough about why I haven't blogged about social media, and on to what you really want to read about,

Social media changes everyday:

Insights page you would see as an administrator

Since working as a social media marketer, I have learned so much about this realm of the internet. If you are an administrator on a Facebook business page you can see who is looking at your site and if the users are engaging more on a month to month or a week to week basis. WHOA!! This is probably the best feature Facebook has ever come out with for business owners. In my social media classes they have always talked about the ROI (return on investment) being so hard to track, but now you can track it from the "Insights" tab on the administrator's page. It is so cool!! I have raised Griffs Post Feedback up from 150% a week ago to 788% this week. Needless to say, my boss is pretty happy with these results!!

The main reason I love this field is that you get to learn something new everyday because this field changes everyday and you have to keep up. I went to a webinar last week to update myself on what was going on. I have since applied these concepts to Griffs, and we have seen a significant increase in sales. EXCITING!! I was even mentioned by a guest speaker that came to talk to my class. She didn't know that I was the marketer for Griffs, but she sung out what a wonderful job we were doing with our Facebook page (Griffs Deli's Facebook Page)With all of this success that I have seen, I want to help other businesses grow.